Module 2: Survey — Plan the Week
Great content weeks are decided before the camera turns on. This module covers the Survey: claiming your territories, mining your audience for topics, and running a 30-minute weekly planning session that hands you next week's bedrock on a plate.
Claim your territories
Every strong creator owns a handful of subjects — the things their audience expects them to talk about. Call them your territories: three to five subject areas you claim as yours. A plumber's territories might be drain disasters, water heater wisdom, and "weird things found in pipes." A bakery's: behind-the-scenes baking, wedding cake stories, and pricing honesty. Territories do two jobs: they tell your audience what to expect, and they tell you what to ignore. If a topic doesn't fit a territory, it doesn't get made.
Pick territories at the intersection of three things: what you actually know, what your buyers keep asking about, and what you could talk about for a year without getting bored. Write them as plain phrases, not clever slogans. Five clear territories beat fifty vague interests. You'll revisit this list twice a year — territories can evolve as your business does, but week to week they stay fixed, so every bedrock lands on claimed ground.
Test a territory before you commit to it: make three bedrocks in a candidate territory and watch what happens. Do the pebbles get traction? Do people ask follow-ups? Do you want to make a fourth? Three is enough to feel the territory's depth without marrying it. Territories that survive the three-bedrock test earn a permanent slot; ones that feel like homework get cut. Your territories should energize you, not just make strategic sense.
Your turn: Write your 3–5 territories — the subjects you'll claim. For each one, add a question your buyers keep asking about it.
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Build brief
List the 3–5 territories your content should own. Which one could you talk about for a year straight?
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The comment mine
Your audience is already telling you what to make — in comments, replies, DMs, reviews, and the questions customers ask in person. Treat all of it as a comment mine: a raw-material source you work deliberately instead of scrolling past. Once a week, spend twenty minutes collecting: the exact questions people asked (copy the wording), the objections that came up ("but does it work for…?"), and the moments that got strong reactions. A question asked twice is a bedrock topic. A question asked five times is a bedrock topic you're already late on.
Look in five places: comments on your posts, DMs and message requests, reviews of your business, questions customers ask you face-to-face or by email, and comments on competitors' posts in your territories. Write down the literal words people use — their phrasing becomes your titles and hooks later, because it matches how real buyers think. Keep it all in one running note or document; Module 6 gives you a simple log template for it.
Mine your own history too. Scroll back through your last 50 posts and note which five got the strongest reactions — those are proven bedrock candidates hiding in plain sight. Your audience already voted; you just weren't counting. An old post that sparked 40 comments deserves a full bedrock treatment, because the demand is demonstrated, not guessed. The comment mine includes your own backyard.
Build brief
What are the five questions your customers or followers ask you most? Write them in their own words if you can.
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The 30-minute survey session
The Survey is a weekly ritual, same time every week, with a fixed agenda. Minutes 0–10: read through the week's comment mine additions and star the strongest three. Minutes 10–20: pick one bedrock topic using this filter — does it fit a territory, and did the audience ask for it? Audience-asked beats your-idea every time, because the demand is pre-proven. Minutes 20–30: sketch the bedrock's shape in three lines — the hook (why anyone should care), the three main points, the payoff (what they walk away with).
End the session by writing the topic and the three points at the top of a fresh page or doc. That's your bedrock brief, and it makes the creation session dramatically faster — you never start from a blank page.
Bring one "wild card" to each survey session: a topic from outside your territories that caught your eye this week — something a competitor did, a trend you noticed, a customer story that surprised you. Most weeks the wild card loses to a territory topic, and that's fine. But occasionally it's the best idea in the room, and those occasional wins keep your content from going stale. Discipline with a pressure valve.
Build brief
When will you run your weekly 30-minute survey — which day and time? What would make you actually keep that appointment?
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Survey session
Territory 1: ___ | Hot question: ___ Territory 2: ___ | Hot question: ___ Territory 3: ___ | Hot question: ___ This week's bedrock topic: ___
Marcus is a plumber. His territories are drain cleaning, water heaters, and "weird finds." A follower comments asking why their hot water smells like rotten eggs. What's the right Survey-stage move?